CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS – IMMIGRATION
Sept. 19, 2012 – 5:32 p.m.
Democratic Opposition Mounts to House GOP’s High-Tech Visa Legislation
By David Harrison, CQ Staff
A significant Democratic bloc opposes Republican legislation aimed at increasing visas for highly skilled immigrants, jeopardizing the bill’s chances on the House floor Thursday.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus joined in a “Dear Colleague” letter Wednesday urging House members to oppose the high-tech visa bill (
The House is slated to consider the measure, sponsored by Judiciary Chairman
The legislation that Smith introduced Sept. 18 would abolish the diversity visa program — which awards 55,000 green cards a year to immigrants around the world via lottery — and give the visas instead to foreign graduates of American universities with doctoral and master’s degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, known as the STEM fields.
Abolishing the diversity visas was necessary to win support from conservatives, for whom increasing the net number of new immigrants is anathema.
Resisting a Zero-Sum Approach
While the “tri-caucus” supports the idea of granting more permanent visas to foreign tech workers, it opposes doing so at the expense of other, less-educated groups of immigrants, the “Dear Colleague” letter said.
Eliminating the diversity visas “would actually make things worse,” the letter said. “This program serves as a narrow but key path of legal immigration for residents of nations with historically low rates of immigration to the United States, such as African nations whose residents were issued approximately 50 percent of such visas in recent years.”
“Creating a stream of STEM green cards is part of the solution and worthy of our support,” the letter continues, “but the zero-sum approach of House Republicans, where we are forced to rob Peter of his visa so Paul can wait in a shorter line, is poor policy with poor prospects for becoming law.”
House Democrats are more likely to support an alternative bill (
Lofgren sent a letter of her own to her House colleagues Wednesday asking them not to support Smith’s bill.
Sen.
Bipartisan Agreement on Need
Democratic Opposition Mounts to House GOP’s High-Tech Visa Legislation
For months, Smith had been meeting with Schumer looking to craft a bipartisan compromise. But those negotiations broke down this summer, leaving House Republicans with few options other than to try to push through their legislation with little or no Democratic support.
Although immigration has traditionally been a contentious and delicate issue on Capitol Hill, both parties agree on the need for more visas for highly skilled workers. And business and technology lobbyists pushed hard for the legislation.
On Wednesday, a group of more than 100 business groups, employers and chambers of commerce signed a letter supporting Smith’s bill. The group includes Apple, Microsoft and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
House Republican leaders included STEM visas in their “jobs” agenda last year. The official GOP platform also supports the visas, as does Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But House Republican leaders are now facing the possibility that a bill that is in line with their party’s priorities could go down in defeat.
The House vote could also put some of the more outspoken anti-immigration advocates in the Republican Conference in a difficult position. One of them, Rep.
On Wednesday, however, King backed off from his earlier comments, saying he had yet to make up his mind about Thursday’s vote.